In 1865, an engineer named Fredrik Idestam established a wood-pulp mill and started manufacturing paper in southern Finland near the banks of a river. Those were the days when there was a strong demand for paper in the industry, the company's sales achieved its high-stakes and Nokia grew faster and faster. The Nokia exported paper to Russia first and then to the United Kingdom and France. The Nokia factory employed a fairly large workforce and a small community grew around it. In southern Finland a community called Nokia still exists on the riverbank of Emäkoski.
Introduction of mobile network began enabling the Nokia production to invent the Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT), the world's very first multinational cellular network in 1981. The NMT was later on introduced in other countries. Very soon Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), a digital mobile telephony, was launched and Nokia started the development of GSM phones. Beginning of the 1990 brought about an economic recession in Finland. Slowly and steadily, Nokia became a large television manufacturer and also the largest information technology company in the Nordic countries. During the economic recession Nokia was committed to telecommunications. The 2100 series of the production was so successful that inspire of its goal to sell 500,000 units, it marvelously sold 20 million. Presently, Nokia is the number 1 production in digital technologies; it invests 8.5% of net sales in research and development. It also has its annual Nokia Game. Nokia's snake game in 1997 was one of the most popular mobile phone games in history.
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was born in 1953, in Latvia Finland and holds a masters degree in Law from the University of Helsinki. He is now currently the Chief Executive Officer for the Nokia Corporation. Although just recently instated as CEO in 2006 he has had a longstanding history with the corporation. Kallasvuo has been with Nokia since 1980 where he worked as a Corporate Counsel. In 1987 he was promoted to VP of the legal Department and only one year later moved to Assistant VP of Finance. After moving quickly up the corporate ladder Kallasvuo became CFO in 1992. In 1997 when Nokia was trying to become more dominant in the United States market he was named Corporate Executive Vice President for Nokia United States branch. When Kallasvuo arrived back from the U.S he became GM of the mobile phone division before ultimately becoming CEO of Nokia. After becoming CEO he was also appointed as the Chairman of the board of Nokia Siemens Networks.
